- They were never registered – NUC
Due to the recent clamp down on 58 universities declared illegal by the National Universities Commission, two dons have said that not less than 58, 000 students will lose their studentship.
The affected students will have to apply afresh for admission into other universities across the country, the dons said.
According to them, each of these 58 universities declared illegal by the NUC would have admitted not less than 1,000 students, leaving the fate of about 58,000 students hanging in the balance.
They further said the students, who have invested in such illegal schools, had wasted resources.
A lecturer in the Department of International Relations, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Prof. Sheriff Folarin, said that the development had left the affected students with “scattered hope.”
Folarin also blamed the students and their parents for being ignorant, saying that such an incident had occurred in the past.
He said, “These students will be become “student less”; their studentship will be taken away from them. For those who have been there for a long time, it will look like a scattered hope for them. These students will be out in the cold.
“I would blame the parents and students in these schools. There has been a thing like this in the past, where there was a clamp down on illegal institutions. Students should be more conscious of this now; they should do more research before NUC could help them if they can.”
Speaking in the same vein, Prof. Job Atteh of the Department of Agriculture, University of Ilorin, said, “These students are on their own, they would lose everything.
“NUC is the regulatory authority for all universities in Nigeria. Any university or course not accredited by NUC is illegal and any certificate issued by such unapproved institution is not legal. I am surprised that any student or parent will apply to an unapproved university. Probably, each of these schools had over a thousand students, this would leave over 58, 000 students in depression.”
In the same, Atteh blamed desperate students and parents for the development.
“So, I hold such parent and student responsible. I know NUC is trying by releasing at intervals a list of unapproved universities and unaccredited courses even in approved universities. I guess there are too many desperate prospective qualified candidates, who couldn’t get admission to approved universities, and these scrupulous people are taking advantage of the situation,” he said.
But the NUC Director of Information and Public Relations, Ibrahim Yakasai, maintained that these 58,000 victims of the shut illegal universities were never students.
“These students were never registered; none of them had approval in the first place. Students should note that all admission should be through JAMB. They give admission to recognised schools by NUC. No student in Nigeria will say he or she is not aware of JAMB,” he said.
